It's a fact of life: when you buy a 1080p set, you never see true 1080p resolution when things are in motion. Gary Merson (of Home Theater Mag and HDGuru.com) looked at 19 TVs listed as 1080p, and found that while their "static" resolution ranged from true 1080 down to a miserable 400, the "motion" resolution of the best sets was 880, while the worst only delivered 360 lines. "You're never going to have full resolution with moving pictures," Merson told us. But the differences in performance were startling:

Vizio was the steaming turd of the study, with its GV47FHDTV scoring both the 400-line static res and the shabby-as-hell 360-line motion res.

The plasmas did the best on the test. The two Panasonics tested (50PZ700 and 50PZ750) scored full 1080 when still, and 880 when moving. A Samsung plasma (FPT5084) got high marks with 1080 static and 830 motion res. (Note: the test Merson used originated with a consortium of plasma makers—Advanced PDP Development Center—so plasma scoring higher is no big surprise.)

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The LCDs that fared best on this resolution test were from Sharp, with 1080p static and 600 lines in motion, almost across the board. An LG model also scored 600 in motion, while Sony and Samsung LCDs scored in the high 500s.

For more detailed analysis and a look at Merson's chart, hit the Home Theater Magazine article. [Home Theater]